Nonwoven webs are widely used in disposable absorbent articles for personal care and hygiene, such as disposable diapers, training pants, adult incontinence undergarments, feminine hygiene products, breast pads, care mats, bibs, wound dressing products, and the like. Also in disposable cleaning articles, such as sweepers or mops, nonwoven webs find intensive application. To make these disposable absorbent articles and disposable cleaning articles more appealing to the consumers, the nonwoven webs used therein are often colored or provided with a printed pattern or graphic. Apart from improving the overall visual appearance of the disposable absorbent articles and disposable cleaning articles, it is often desirable to provide signals to the consumer to highlight certain aspects of features of the disposable absorbent articles, such as softness or the ability to absorb liquid.
Uniformly colored nonwoven webs (e.g., by using homogeneously colored fibers) pose certain restrictions in the ability to accentuate specific aspects, and features because distinct areas within a given nonwoven web cannot be visually set apart from the remaining nonwoven web.
On the other side, printing images on nonwoven webs results in an increase of cost. It requires an additional process step, namely the printing step, in addition to the manufacturing of the nonwoven web. Also, e.g., when used in disposable absorbent articles, the printed images may be rubbed off during use, e.g., when the print is provided on a surface of a nonwoven web which forms a garment-facing surface of the article. Also, if the print is applied on the nonwoven web which forms the inner surface of a disposable absorbent article (such as the topsheet), the inks have to be compatible with surfactants and/or the lotion with which the topsheet may have been treated and must not be washed off when they come into contact with body liquids.
Hence, there is a continued need to provide nonwoven webs having a visual distinct appearance, which can be made in a simple, cost-efficient manner and which do not cause drawbacks, such as rub-off, wash off, or adverse effects on additional treatments of the nonwoven webs, such as application of lotion and/or surfactant.